rget Thee, and that Thou hast
died to save me! Grant me this my prayer, Lord, for Christ's sake,
Amen."

It came to this: Laura made a kind of pact with God, in which His aid
at the present juncture guaranteed her continued, unswerving allegiance.

The idea once lodged in her mind, she wrestled with Him night after
night, filling His ears with her petitions, and remaining on her knees
for such an immoderate length of time that her room-mates, who were
sleepy, openly expressed their impatience.

"Oh, draw it mild, Laura!" said the girl in the neighbouring bed, when
it began to seem as if the supplicant would never rise to her feet
again. "Leave something to ask Him to-morrow."

But Laura, knowing very well that the Lord our God is a jealous God,
was mindful not to scrimp in lip-service, or to shirk the minutest
ceremony by means of which He might be propitiated and won over. Her
prayers of greeting and farewell, on entering and leaving church, were
drawn out beyond anyone else's; she did not doze or dream over a single
clause of the Litany, with its hypnotising refrain; and she not only
made the sign of the Cross at the appropriate place in the Creed, but
also privately at every mention of Christ's name.

Meanwhile, of course, she worked at her lessons with unflagging zeal,
for it was by no means her intention to throw the whole onus of her
success on the Divine shoulders. She overworked; and on one occasion
had a distressing lapse of memory.

And at length spring was gone and summer come, and the momentous week
arrived on which her future depended. Now, though, she was not alone in
her trepidation. The eyes of even the surest members of the form had a
steely glint in them, and mouths were hard. Dr. Pughson's papers were
said to be far more formidable than the public examination: if you got
happily through these, you were safe.

Six subjects were compulsory; high-steppers took nine. Laura was one of
those with eight, and since her two obligatory mathematics were not to
be relied on, she could not afford to fail in a single subject.

In the beginning, things, with the exception of numbers, went pretty
well with her. Then came the final day, and with it the examination in
history. Up to the present year Laura had cut a dash in history; now
her brain was muddled, her memory overtaxed, by her having had to cram
the whole of Green's HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE in a few months,
besides a large dose of GREECE and ROM